I haven’t been watching movies anymore which means that I haven’t been doing a good job of paying Hollywood for their investment in comics as a source of inspiration means to rip off stories. The major release last year was The Watchmen which I finally got around to err watching.

I never read the series which probably explains why I wasn’t in a rush to see it. That also mean I didn’t know the characters or the back story (and even now it is very difficult for me to understand how to pronounce Rorschach). The movie did an adequate job of explaining the universe and performed enough character development so that you understood the characters.

The world of the Watchmen is similar to ours until WW2 at which point masked heroes started changing history. The opening credits showed some of the changes in history including Nixon’s third term in office, the superhero involvement in the Vietnam war, and a superhero killing JFK. I always enjoy what-if scenarios and so enjoyed this too! I also liked the way they portrayed historical events. History was shown with individuals moving (very) slow. So it was like you were watching an interactive picture of the past.

After the setting had been set and the characters were portrayed, I didn’t enjoy the movie was much. The seemed to be a sort of a lull and the final villain’s plot seemed convoluted and overcomplicated. Although this was somewhat rectified with a non-traditional ending.

The Watchmen is rated R and it is indeed a mature movie. In the fight scenes, you see bones bent in gross ways that they shouldn’t be bending, and there is a lot of blood spurting. I’m glad I’m old enough not to get nightmares from comics. There are some good parts and some bad, so I would rate it overall as a three out of five movie.

Posted by Kevin in Blogs Tags: comics, history, moviereview